Helmets, Tinted Glasses and Low Hanging Fruit

I’m opposed to the law that makes wearing of helmets and seatbelts mandatory for two wheeler and four wheeler drivers (respectively). I might have argued earlier that they cause perverse incentives (a driver wearing a seatbelt is likely to feel “safer” and thus drive more rashly, causing more collateral damage). There is another important reason I add now – these provide too much low hanging fruit for cops to provide them enough incentive to go after real crime. Let me explain.

Cops are an overworked and underpaid lot. So they try to improve their lot by extracting rents wherever possible. So you have random traffic cops flagging you down to “check your documents” so that some deficiency can be pointed out and a fast buck can be made. Or you have (non-traffic) cops “inspecting” bars to ensure that excise rules are being followed – once again to make a fast buck. What Inspector Dhoble and co in Mumbai are doing is to similarly go after low hanging fruit – easy targets who they can “catch” and hopefully make a fast buck of.

While rules such as compulsory helmets, not having tinted glasses and drinking permits might be desirable from the social perspective (even that is highly debatable), the bigger damage such rules do is to over-stress an already overworked police force. Policemen have a choice between doing “real” police work which could actually lead to reduction of crime, but which may not pay in terms of “rents”; and the “low-hanging fruit” work which may not go that far in controlling crime but allows the policeman to make a fast buck. Given the general stress that goes with being a policeman, it is no surprise if most policemen would opt to do the latter kind of work.

One obvious solution is to expand the police force, provide better training and better pay so that policemen spend more of their time spending real crime. But that involves strategic changes which might take a long time to put in place. Police reforms are important and the sooner we start them the better. However, it needs to be recognized that it’s a long-term project  and has a long gestation period.

So what needs to be done to increase police efficiency in the short run? Cut opportunities for policemen to pick the low hanging fruit. Repeal the helmet and seatbelt laws, stop summary stopping of vehicles and document checking (except for drunken driving) and shift to a notice-and-voucher system, repeal archaic laws that allow policemen to disturb business, legalize prostitution and the like.

We already have an over-stretched police force. We don’t need further stretching by means of increasing their workload. Simplify the rules and make it easier for policemen to implement them, and crime is more likely to drop that way.

4 thoughts on “Helmets, Tinted Glasses and Low Hanging Fruit”

  1. Dont you think doing away with such laws will have collateral damage too? Drivers will have their helmets on their sleeve which is more likely to lead to accidents. Tinted glass is detrimental to a good view especially at night on roads that do not have proper lighting. You think the police will benefit by having more time on their hands to do actual work, but again that is debatable. Road safety is more important than good police work in my opinion.

  2. Perhaps you have a point, but using helmets, tinted glasses and seatbelts as an example may not be appropriate, because such offences fall under the purview of the TRAFFIC COPS and ARE the ‘crimes’ that they are expected to curb as a part of their job!

    “So what needs to be done to increase police efficiency in the short run? Cut opportunities for policemen to pick the low hanging fruit. Repeal the helmet and seatbelt laws, stop summary stopping of vehicles and document checking (except for drunken driving) and shift to a notice-and-voucher system, repeal archaic laws that allow policemen to disturb business, legalize prostitution and the like.”

    – kinda ridiculous because doing this will destroy the homes of hundreds of policemen who rely on every single tenner or fiver that they collect for the upkeep of their families!!

  3. As per the law, no traffic policemen can stop you and check the vehicle documents, unless you are violating a traffic law. It says so in their official website, and I’ve asked a policeman on my very first week in Bangalore why he did so on one occasion when there was no observed violation. He said that he was abiding by the law and all his colleagues do (apparently, it did not apply after 11pm when there are potential drunken driving cases) and he let me go when he saw that I clearly wasn’t drunk without doing a breath-analyzer test or asking for vehicle documents. He agreed that corruption is still at large, but in their case it is just two men violating the law, the driver/rider being the first. He also added that its only in Bangalore that traffic policemen don’t do random checks and since then I’ve observed it to be true for the last year (in which I’ve been pulled over many times – all visible violations) considering its easy to be pulled over for rash-driving which everybody is guilty of. They don’t.

    One big reason for having the law in place is to be prepared for ‘accidents’, which are actually accidental in nature i.e. which does not involve human errors or carelessness, e.g a stray dog, cow, sand littered around the corner, when you cannot blame anybody at all, which can be fatal. There obviously isn’t any strong argument as to why anybody wouldn’t need to wear helmets (premature hair-loss and affected audibility is seriously a joke). I don’t see a reason why we shouldn’t have helmets for pillions or seat-belts on for the rear seats. Casualties on the road measure their efficiency and control, and they have to exercise their laws to mitigate them.

    I honestly feel that the existing laws are far from stringent also far from ideal. Its just individual propensity to drive carefully/carelessly, give/take bribes. Maybe its true that India is far too populated for everybody to make a honest living.

    Experiment by wiping clean your earlier impressions about the police, put aside taboos, of ‘police station oLage kaalu iTTilla’, also assume they accept bribes for normalizing their income, use foul-language to vent out frustrations and are just ‘here to protect and serve’ and then evaluate them.

    PS:I don’t have any relatives in the police force(of any kind). My vehicle insurance has not been renewed for eight months as a part of my experiment which I know might cost me 300Rs one day. And this is my first comment on your blog which I’ve been following for six years.

Leave a Reply to Varun RaoCancel reply